1st November 2005

ETOA Will Criticise EU Body on Standards for Local Guides

At the annual conference of the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) on Thursday November 10th in London, Tom Jenkins, Executive Director, will make a statement on work developing standards for locally qualified guides in Europe.

ETOA is expected to criticise the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) for focussing too narrowly on one particular type of tourist guide in its work to draw up standards. Tom Jenkins, Executive Director, said: “The Committee is linking its definition of a ‘Tourist Guide’ too closely to a person who has a local guiding qualification, with the risk that it will enshrine restrictive practices.” ETOA points out that teachers, group leaders, university professors, tour company representatives, couriers, country house librarians, ministers and even coach drivers (when the bus engine is turned off) all act as in a tourist guiding capacity when and where necessary.

Tom says “Ours is an evolving industry, where companies have to select and train those people who best meet the needs of their clients. For most tour operators these needs are not met by locally qualified guides. They perform an important but limited function in guiding people around a particular location or site. To maintain that all tourist guides are those that have local qualifications denigrates tourist guiding as a whole, particularly the guiding that is undertaken by tour managers.”

ETOA’s annual conference commences at 9.00 am at the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel, 22 Portman Square,
London W1.

Topics on the agenda include:
• Legal issues affecting tour managers in Europe - Executive Director ETOA
• Selling travel online in Europe: legal pitfalls and where to do it – ETOA report
• Progress of the .travel initiative – update from Tralliance, the organising body
• The big issues facing tourism in Europe – Executive Director ETOA
• The impact of climate change on European tourism in – an expert briefing
• The potential of India as an origin market – new research, panel discussion